California 8: Verdugo West Brewing Company, North LA

There are many many breweries and fabulous bars in Los Angeles, and LA itself is absolutely massive. We decided to just be opportunistic and go to bars near to where we would be anyway, to try to maximise our time and not pretend we’d get everywhere we planned to go. Hence we ended up in Karl Strauss at Universal, which worked out very well, and the next day at Verdugo West Brewing Company after our Warner Bros. studio tour in Burbank.

We didn’t know anything about Verdugo, except we liked their website and logo and they allow under 21s on the premises. They had a good beer choice on, and are a proper tap house within a brewery. There was a competitive game of beanbag throwing going on when we arrived, a la Anchor, so we watched and waited our turn to play while nursing a fine flight of four beers:

What Plane?: a creamy oatmeal stout on nitro that was excellently weighty for 5.3%

Rancho Los Felis: a tongue-tingling plum sour which I doubt will be bettered on our travels, it was superb

The beers were so great we took cans of the sours home with us – magically canned before our eyes in a mini crowler machine. As for the beanbag throwing, the less said the better – how we didn’t damage their beautiful copper kit I do not know. Lets just agree neither of us will be bowling for England anytime soon…